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We will again use Matthew's account, it being the most complete. It appears that Christ left the home into which He Had gone last week where he had established who His true relatives were and went to the Sea of Galilee where He got into a boat and rowing a short distance from the shore, He sat down and proceeded to reach the multitudes who had followed Him there in what He refers to as parables. Webster, in his dictionary says that parables are short fictitious stories that illustrate a moral attitude or religious principle. Jesus taught this way because the stories were easy for the people to understand. All of these parables have to do with mans relationship to God. Most are well known but perhaps, their application is not so well understood.
Our first parable is known as "The Parable of the Sower", someone whose sole job is to sow seeds. To understand this parable we must forget what we normally consider as one man's job, and divide it into two men's jobs. Normally a man would prepare his own ground and plant the seeds himself. In this parable, one man prepares the ground and another sows the seed. The sower is not responsible for the condition of the soil or the results of the planting, therefore, we see from the parable that the seed did not all develop the same because not all the soil was the same. Some seed fell on "heavily traveled" ground and birds came and ate up the seed. Some seed fell on "rocky ground" where the soil was shallow and immediately can up but was soon scorched by the sun. Some seed fell amongst weeds and thorns and were soon choked out. But there were some seed that fell on "good soil" and greatly multiplied.
Now lets try to glean from this the lesson that Jesus was teaching.
We see from this parable that not everyone responds to the Gospel the same. Lets see how these four soil conditions represent the four conditions of peoples hearts today.
Jesus ends this parable with the comment, "He who had ears, let him hear." The Apostle Paul would say, "He who is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, let him take heed." Jesus says later in verse 11, speaking to the Disciples, "To you it had been given the secretes of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them (the multitudes at that time) it had not been given.
We believe that here Jesus was foretelling how the Word of God would be received later on. This parable would come back to them many times after the Ascension when they went out preaching and teaching the Word. First, it told them what to expect from people. How they would receive the message. Secondly, it told them where their responsibility ended. They were responsible for sowing the Word. They were not responsible for the increase. God and God alone is responsible for the increase for not all people have been enlightened alike by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus says here, some a hundred fold some 60 some 30.
This parable is to be used by us as information as to how people will respond to the preaching of the word. It is not to be used to determine who is saved and who is not. This determination is left only to the Lord, He only knows the hearts of men. This is the first of seven parables in this 13th. chapter of Matthew. They may, or may not, have been spoken at one setting. Notice as we continue the study of these parables, the progress that the Disciples make in understanding. In the first one that we just studied, they did not know enough to even ask questions. In the second one, we will see that they ask for an interpretation. In the succeeding ones, they know enough to ask intelligent questions, each time growing in grace and understanding. Matthew Henry says, "The first light and the first grace are given, but further degrees of both, must be daily prayed for."
The second parable (Matt. 13:24-30) is called the parable of the "wheat and the tares". In this parable a man sows good seed in good soil. But during the night, his enemy came and sowed weeds in the same field, so that when the wheat came up, the weeds came up also. Now the servants of the man wanted to go out and pull up the weeds but the man said no less in gathering the weeds they would tare up the wheat also. His instructions were to let them grow together until the harvest when they would be separated. The wheat would be put into the barn and the weeds would be burned.
Now lets look at the meaning of this parable. This parable represents the state of any body of believers. Good seed, God's Word, is planted in good soil, the enlightened heart of the believer. During the "night", a time when the church will let its beliefs and requirements for membership down, the children of the devil will come into the church. They look alike, they fare alike, they share the same blessings, rain, sun and fertile soil and no one knows that they are there until both have become firmly rooted and entwined together.
The question is asked concerning the quality of the seed, but the seed was good. What about the servant that planted it? No, the Master does not lay the blame there either, as He might very well do. God realizes our frame. The workers for Christ shall not be held accountable for the false decisions that are made for Christ. But shouldn't we try to purge our church of these hypocrites? No, let in doing so, we up root some Christians, besides, Christ will judge, and He alone, and the judgement will come at the "harvest", the Judgement Day, when the two shall be separated. The weeds shall be gathered first, bound into bundles and cast into the fire of Hell. Then the wheat shall be gathered into the barn of Heaven. "He who had an ear, let him hear."
The third parable concerns a "grain of mustard seed", one of the smallest seeds in the world, yet when germinated, grows into a large plant of 12 to 15 feet high. The comparison is to the Gospel, small at first in it's growth, but in the end will greatly increase. (Matt. 13:31-32)
The parable is pretty much self explanatory. Most people have seen a grain of mustard seed encased in a glass ball, hung around someone's neck or made into ear rings and you know how small it is. But what it lacks in size it makes up in being hearty, and so it is with the Gospel. But notice one thing, nothing ever grows big for bigness sake. The growth of the Gospel in our life and the life of our church, must be for the Lord's sake, or we grow in vain. The tiny seed becomes a shrub as tall as a tree for a reason, that the birds of the air might come and make nests in its branches. Never hide your light under a bushel or your talent in the ground.
The fourth parable, (Matt. 13:33) the parable of the "leaven". This parable and the one before it are referred to as "twin parables", meaning that both are symbolic of the same thing. Leaven is a combination of two Hebrew words meaning to ferment or to sour and from a Latin word "levamen", meaning that which rises. It worked the same as yeast does today, but it was not yeast, it was a small piece of highly fermented dough left over from a previous baking of bread.
Notice in the previous parable, the seed greatly multiplied, here, the small piece of fermented dough soon "leavens" the whole loaf. Again symbolizing the growth of the Gospel in a Christians life and in the life of the church. Four similar characteristics are here mentioned:
I like what Matthew Henry says concerning this parable, "It is effectual not by outside force, such as man, but from within by the Holy Spirit whose work none can hinder." The change in both is not in substance but in quality. The change in a person when the Holy Spirit convicts and converts, permeates the whole person just as the leaven permeates the whole loaf.
The fifth parable is a comparison between your salvation and a treasure of great value hid in a field. Salvation is the treasure of great value through which we can acquire all that is satisfying and needful. The Gospel is the field in which the treasure is hid. The Bible is the container from which we can discover this treasure. John says if we search the scriptures, in them we will not only find eternal life but will find the assurance of it, the greatest treasure of all.
Those who discover the treasure will be so intent on obtaining it that they will give up everything to buy it. Now we know that we cannot buy our salvation but we must be willing to sacrifice all that we have that we might be acceptable to Him. Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "go sell what you have and give it to the poor and take up your cross and follow me." What did your salvation cost you?
The sixth parable compares your salvation to a pearl of great value. We, like the man in the parable, are constantly seeking after pearls. We desire for ourselves and our loved ones, all that we can obtain to bring some measure of happiness. When we discover Jesus and accept Him as our Savior, we realize we have been seeking satisfaction in "counterfeit pearls". Christ is the pearl of great value for which we were really seeking. The true Christian can be termed as a spiritual merchant knowing the value of that for which he seeks and upon finding it, sells all that he has to obtain it.
Notice the one ingredient that is common to all of these parables, we must be willing to give up all for the sake of Christ. The seventh parable is similar to the second, the wheat and the tares, it describes the "visible church". The world is described as a "vast sea" into which the "net" of the Gospel is cast. The net gathers in many kinds of fish, some good and some bad. The good will be gathered together in vessels but the bad will be cast away. If we try, as some have suggested, to be selective in our fishing, we may loose some of the good fish. So shall it be at the end of the world, we will all be gathered together and the Lord will say to some, "Depart from me, I never knew you", to others He will welcome into His eternal home. So the separation will and should be left up to the Lord.
The eighth and last of these parables concerns a good housekeeper, perhaps he might be better called an administrator or leader. After telling the Disciples all of the preceding parables, He asked them if they understood everything. He obviously was ready to further explain them if it was necessary. But they answered that they understood all that He had taught them. He commends them and does honor to them by calling them "scribes" or "scholars" that are trained for the Kingdom of Heaven. He compares them to a "housekeeper" or a leader who seeks to better himself and those whom he leads or administers to, by drawing from his past experience along with his present learning. Christ was saying to these Disciples that their ability to understand these parables was the result of a life of experience along with His teaching over the last few months, drawing from what is new and what is old. We can best understand new truths through the windows of the old.
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